Welcome

The Foster Planet Walk is a scale model of the Solar System designed to give everyone in the Grand Rapids community a chance to experience our Solar System. The Planet Walk is designed to show you the relative spacing between the planets that orbit the Sun - each held in their elliptical orbits by the Sun's steady gravitational pull.

The AQ model shows the spacing between the planets to scale, but not their relative size. Instead, each planetary disk is about the same size (13 inches in diameter), in order to highlight some surface details that can be seen from Earth with small telescopes.

The average distance between the center of the Sun and the center of the Earth is called 1 Astronomical Unit (1 A.U.). It is equal to about 93,000,000 miles. On our Planet Walk Model, 1 A.U. is set equal to 40 feet. Using this scale, the most distant planet is about 1600 feet from the imaginary Sun. The corner of Albertus Hall is the location of our imaginary Sun on this model. >>More